Old Men in Love
Page 2
“Footnotes or endnotes?” I asked. He said, “Marginal notes. I like widening my readers’ range of expectations.”
I saw no sense in that but let it go.*
Writing this introduction has so saturated me in what seems a bygone era (though actually modern Scotland) that I am tempted to say that I now lay down my pen, satisfied in having done all I can for my unfortunate cousin’s memory. But I dictate these words to a secretary sitting with her wireless-enabled laptop on the sunny patio of my Los Angeles home. It only remains to add that the publishing director of Bloomsbury, or perhaps her marketing department, insists for commercial reasons that the book be called Old Men in Love, which is certainly more accurate than Alasdair Gray’s original idea. I will now do my best to forget John Tunnock while hoping that Mr Gray manages to “claw back” more money from the publication than he has led me to believe possible.
Beverly Hills, California
28 July 2007
* The marginal notes from the print edition have been converted to endnotes for the ebook format.
The time is now three in the morning after the most bemusing hours of my life. They started yesterday when I arose and as usual on days when cleaners come, had to start by tidying away signs of female presence scattered over my floors from living room to lavatory: discarded garments, cosmetic tools, photographic magazines about the sex lives of beautiful rich people. The women I once knew kept a tidy house – why are young things who stay here different? I begin by showing them cupboards, drawers and the newspaper rack but when I suggest they tidy things into them they snort and ignore me. They love their messes like cats that have not been housetrained so claim a new territory by pissing over it. When serving breakfast to Niki yesterday I told her so. Her reaction was violent and I came near to apologising for my honesty. Our parting was acrimonious. Worked all day at University Library on Athenian economics, left late, called in at Tennants. It was buzzing with the communal elation that usually follows Scottish football victories, though the TV kept showing what seemed a Hollywood disaster movie. I joined the Mastermind1 who told me suicidal terrorists had made two passenger planes crash into the World Trade Center, totally destroying it and killing hundreds. He thought the elation in Tennants resembled the delight of mobs in Berlin, Paris and London who in 1914 cheered the start of the first great modern war – they knew the world would now change unpredictably, which gave them a brief illusion of freedom. I disagreed. The Twin Towers have been the main financial house of an Empire State whose bankers and brokers (according to New York writer Tom Wolfe), think themselves masters of the universe although they do nothing but enrich themselves by manipulating international money markets. They do not care what this does to other nations, but know they control them, and such capitalists should not be perfectly safe. The destroyers of the Trade Center must have thought like John Brown and the blacks who attacked the United States armoury in Virginia and those who in 1916 flew the Irish Republic flag above the central Dublin Post Office: they knew they would die but thought their example would change history in a way years of appealing for justice had failed to change it. Mastermind is an old-fashioned Tory since his father was a landowning squire in the north of England. After a thoughtful silence he said the atrocity would not even slightly damage Capitalism, which is fully insured against the worst conceivable losses of life and property. The calamity was an act of guerrilla warfare by folk without an army and air force to fight the U.S.A. – folk from several lands where the U.S.A. have propped dictatorships, usually to let the U.S.A. buy natural products cheaply – Iran had been one before the recent war. This propping had been done secretly with British assistance, so most Americans and Britains knew nothing of it. If President Bush reacts by declaring war on much poorer nations another Vietnam situation will arize, which the terrorists probably want. Bush’s richest supporters will want that too, as their wealth gathers interest from an expanding war economy. It will also excuse them for seizing dictatorial powers unthinkable in peace. “Interesting times,” concluded Mastermind, having turned my temporary elation into worry for the future.
I came home and was pleasantly surprized at first, thinking Niki had recovered from her huff and tidied the house more thoroughly than I had ever seen it since she moved in. Several minutes passed before I saw she has finally moved out, helped by a systematic partner or partners who own or have hired a van. They have removed enough from this house to equip another, also many small, valuable ornaments. I wandered from room to room in a kind of daze, wondering what to tell the police. My fondness for young things could lead to difficulties if Niki is under the age of consent. What is the age of consent? (Memo: find out.) Such thoughts, troublesome at first, are now eased by blissful relief not caused by sipping this brandy the robbers failed to discover under the pianola lid.
Yes, my life suddenly feels wonderfully simplified by the disappearance of Niki and familiar objects I now realize I never liked. The silver-framed photographs were especially depressing. Inside them our family history flowed through three misleadingly respectable generations: the grandparents I never knew, then my mother and aunts in their younger days, finally me standing between Nell and Nan clutching my Ph.D. scroll, capped and gowned, plump and po-faced like an alarm clock between two candlesticks. My aunts said that was the proudest moment of their lives but I hate being reminded of my appearance. I hope Niki and partners get good money for those frames. The rising crescendo of our quarrels over the last month has been exhausting. Yvonne, equally messy, heralded her departure in the same way. I keep forgetting how each unexpected disappearance restores me to the hopeful freedom I first enjoyed after Aunt Nan’s funeral. Once more I am a man again. In fact more than a man – a writer! Remember the words of Vasari that inspired that bashful university student, poor wee John Tunnock: Nature has created many men who are small and insignificant in appearance but who are endowed with spirits so full of greatness and hearts of such boundless courage that they have no peace until they undertake difficult and almost impossible tasks and bring them to completion, to the astonishment of those who witness them.2 The years of school teaching and running a home for elderly invalids only allowed time to collect raw materials for my book. Since Nan died I have sketched out many adequate chapters but completed none. Niki, Yvonne etcetera. were wildly distracting but necessary, for without the sexual pleasure they gave I could not convincingly describe passionate people. True, I found passion late in life, but so did Fra Filippo Lippi, also orphaned at an early age. He too was in his forties when he helped a young thing escape from a nunnery and began his great paintings in Prato Cathedral. But at last, thank God, I am exiled from fleshly distractions. Silence, exile and cunning will now let me reveal, here in Glasgow, the European Erdgeist to the world in a vision of three unique civilizations. It will be called WHO PAID FOR ALL THIS? and when that Great Book Booms, none other will be left upstanding. Tomorrow, Tunnock, to work!
2: CITIZENS
Hunger and dread make sleep difficult within this seaside city but no lamps are lit at night: they would burn oil that is part of a precious, dwindling food supply. Above and around it myriads of lights glitter from the height of the Milky Way down to the dark fields outside the city walls, but the vast random constellations differ from evenly spaced lower lights which also flicker more, being watchfires of a besieging army.
By a hilltop fire a soldier huddles within easy reach of his short sword, round shield and heap of fuel. He dozes when the flames are high, wakens cold when they sink and, yawning, feeds the fire with sticks and handfuls of dry goat dung. He sometimes glances at a comrade standing on a low limestone ridge behind him. Both soldiers verge on middle age but the first seems younger, being thinner with a trim beard. His face, melancholy in repose, has fine lines suggesting many different expressions, for it is an actor’s face. The other soldier – short, pot-bellied, bushy bearded – is almost menacingly ugly, his partly flattened nose having the tip tilted like the snout of a small pig. W
ith wide-open mouth and eyes whose fixity suggests total absence of mind he faces east to where a dark sea reflects the lowest stars.
Two more soldiers arrive on the ridge, the foremost carrying a bundle of branches. Jumping down beside the fire he drops them on the fuel heap and in a voice that sounds aimed at many people declares, “While scavenging yonder I bumped into one of our gallant Ionian allies. Like the rest of his nation he’s a bit of an idiot – you are an idiot aren’t you?” he calls to his companion who stands staring curiously at the ugly soldier. “Yes, a bit of an idiot but a thoroughly decent chap, also a farmer like me when he’s at home. He gave me a nip from his flask so I asked him back here for a bite and a heat.”
“He’s barefoot without a cloak,” says the Ionian, still staring at the ugly soldier, “and not even shivering.”
“O yes he’s tough! And given to fits like that, but only when there’s nothing else to do. How long this time?”
The question is for the seated soldier who mutters “Since the moon went down.”
“Is he religious?” asks the Ionian.
“Not more than the rest of us. Some folk say a lot less.”
“Because he looks…you know…a bit like the priestess on the tripod when the god goes into her.”
“It isn’t a god he’s got inside him. It’s a demon!”
“What kind?”
“A little one that gives him advice.”
The Ionian cups a hand behind his ear, brings it close to the ugly soldier’s chest and says slyly, “It isn’t doing that now. I can’t hear a word.”
“Leave him alone – it’s his way of thinking!” cries the seated soldier impatiently.
The Ionian climbs down beside the farmer who, having warmed his hands at the fire, rummages in a pile of satchels under the ridge. Pulling out a string of onions and grey lump of cheese he lays them on a flat-topped boulder, contemplates them gloomily, draws his sword and hacks the lump into smaller lumps. With a gesture inviting the Ionian to do the same he wrenches off and bites an onion and crams cheese into his mouth. They stand side by side for a while, stolidly chewing and looking downhill across lower watchfires to the dim walls of the lightless city. Perhaps exasperated by a coarse mouthful the farmer swallows it and growls, “Why doesn’t that stupid little state surrender?”
“Why don’t we pack up and go home?” says the seated soldier. “You tell him,” the farmer orders the Ionian who slowly clears his mouth then says, “I don’t go home because my government ordered me here. It sent me because it’s afraid of your government.”
“If that’s your attitude hand over that flask,” says the farmer grumpily. The Ionian brings a bulging goatskin from under his cloak. Seizing it by the neck the farmer loosens a cord there, tilts his head back, squirts a jet of wine into his mouth and swallows. Ignoring a hand the Ionian has stretched out for the flask he points the neck at him and declares, “You have just said a very ignorant thing. You referred to my government. I don’t have a government. I am the government your government is afraid of – I and all the free citizens of Athens. That city refused to pay us the tribute we need to defend Greek civilization. We discussed this defiance thoroughly and voted for war. That is why your government sent you and your kind to help the free men of Athens attack Potidia.”
“I voted against attacking,” says the seated soldier.
“So did he I believe,” says the farmer, indicating the ugly soldier with his thumb, “but you’re democrats so you obey the will of the majority, otherwise the Athenian state would fall apart.” He drinks again from the flask then murmurs to himself, “Good stuff,” still ignoring the outstretched hand of the Ionian who says, after a moment, “I heard that Pericles governs Athens.” “Nonsense! He’s rich enough to be useful so we elect him to do some important jobs and sometimes take his advice. We can get rid of him any time we like.”
“He’s been head of state for thirty years,” says the seated soldier.
“He’s not a tyrant! He’s not even popular! He’s a pompous, cold-hearted selfish snob who loves nobody but himself and a foreign prostitute! But he’s the best man for the job because he knows what we want and gives it to us.”
“If you ever visit Athens,” the seated soldier tells the Ionian pleasantly, “you will find everyone with prominent jobs are like those in any other Greek city – they are rich.”
“Blethers!” says the farmer hotly. “The rich have more time than the rest of us to do public work, but at every parliamentary session our president is picked from the electoral rolls by lot, so ANY Athenian citizen has a chance at being president. If the Alopeky District wasn’t here on military duty, tomorrow I could be president of Athens, or that stonemason, or a comic showman like you. Why are you grousing? Do you hate our political constitution? Do you want to live under another?” “No,” says the seated soldier.
In a following silence the farmer sees his companions watching the ugly soldier. Annoyed by the loss of their attention he says roughly, “Ignore him. He can stand like that for hours. He carves marble into statues and the twiddly bits on top of columns. You need toughness for that.”
He swigs from the bottle again and mutters, “Not very good statues. Too stiff and mathematical. Nothing at all when compared with the best modern stuff. The great statue of Athena on the Parthenon, seventy feet high. Sailing toward the city on a clear day you see the head in the golden helmet, the shining point of her spear come up over the horizon before you see anything else, and when you stand at her feet and look up…she breathes! No other nation in the world has a goddess like her.”3
Finding himself still ignored he taps the Ionian’s shoulder with the flask’s neck and says pleasantly, “Listen Ionian, I am going to cheer you up. I will prove to you. By dialectics. That your father. Is. A dog.”
The seated soldier sighs impatiently. The Ionian stares. The farmer ties the flask to his belt saying, “You’re a farmer like me so you have dogs at home, right?”
The Ionian nods.
“Think of one. One that’s had puppies but isn’t a bitch, right? Is that dog a father?”
The Ionian nods.
“Is that dog yours?”
“I said so.”
“Then that dog…must be your father!”
The farmer chuckles but the Ionian is not cheered up.
“Quackery,” says the seated soldier, throwing a branch on the fire. The farmer glares at him, growls, “What did you say, grocer-boy?”
“Quack-quack-quackery.”
“You are wrong. It is a dialectical demonstration of a misconstrued syllogism. I’ve learned from experts,” says the farmer with dignity, then asks the Ionian, “Know what an expert is?”
After a pause the Ionian says, “Someone who advizes a government?”
“Correct! But all the free citizens are the government of Athens so we have hundreds of experts! Hundreds and hundreds attracted by our wealth from all over Greece – experts in rhetoric, semantics, politics, history, physics, land measurement, sword fighting, wrestling and interpretation of dreams. They teach the rich for so much a lecture, but on warm evenings poor men like me…well, I’m quite prosperous really…on warm evenings clever men like me go to the marketplace where a lot of experts stand on the pavement lecturing each other! Wise men with a good new idea usually keep it to themselves and rent it out carefully a bit at a time, but their ideas seem to breed by being argued over, so if you stand nearby you can pick up all kinds of useful tips.”
“That bit about my dog wasn’t useful.”
“Not to you! Your state is either a tyranny or a plutocracy or a phony democracy where a ruling boss and his gang are elected every year or two, but in Athens even law courts are democratic. Anybody can prosecute anybody they want or defend themselves before a jury. When you’re doing that it’s very handy knowing how to twist words and do you see something moving and glittering between the first two watchfires there?”
He points downhill. The Ionian peers.
“That,” says the farmer, “is an officer on a tour of inspection and he’d better not find you this side of the hill.”
“O,” says the Ionian and pointing to the flask at the farmer’s belt asks, “Can I have back my…?”
The farmer says firmly but kindly, “I’m sorry lad. No.”
The Ionian leaves. After a moment the seated soldiers says, “You stole that wine.”
“Can I help it that I am a Greek?” cries the farmer, slapping his chest with his fist, “The blood of the great Odysseus flows in these veins and we know what a scoundrel he was. Like a drink?”
“No. Who’s the officer?”
“The Darling. Yes, The Darling,” says the farmer, looking.
The young man who joins them is so strikingly beautiful that the farmer stares frankly at him and the seated soldier turns away to avoid doing so. Though officers of the Athenian democracy mostly belong to the richer class not many dress to show it. This officer’s brilliant tunic and armour show it without inciting mockery because fine clothing suits him and he is popular. A slight lisp and hesitation in speech indicate a conquered stammer which most folk find charming in so masterful a man.
“Cheers,” he says, warming his hands over the fire. “Fourth Alopeky Distwict are you?”
“That’s right,” says the farmer boldly,
“How are you off for wations? Their quantity I mean, not quality.”
“Quantity’s all right. Any news?”
“Weports say they’ll soon be eating each other in that little city. Their Spartan fweinds seem to have abandoned them.”
“Like a drink?” says the farmer, offering the goatskin.
“Thanks.”
The Darling drinks, brushes his lips with a finger, then points and asks, “Why doesn’t that man move?”